I will be starting a series of Math Memoirs from people who have submitted them to me via Social Media, email, and students, former and current, who have given me permission.
I have students write their math memoir in my classes to start school so I can get a feel for a student's math identity.
Write about your math experience. Start with your first memory learning math (my mom used to play card games like Crazy 8's, Memory, and Rummy with my brother and I) and continue up through today. How did your experiences with math mold how you feel about math and your math abilities to this day?
Here is my math memoir. Stay tuned for others from around the world!
My earliest memory of math was playing cards with my brother and mom. We would play Rummy, Crazy 8s, Memory, Go Fish. We all are super competitive and so occasionally the games would end in tears when a sore loser would declare everyone else a cheater.
In Elementary School I remember doing Math Minutes... you know, the anxiety inducing skills test where you would do addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division problems as fast as you could in a minute. I was obsessed with being able to complete all of the problems in a minute and even in the first grade would be successful. I probably also gloated to my classmates about how smart I was... because that was the type of student I was... I am surprised I had friends.
I also remember in Elementary School having my mom teach me how to do long division early. I loved doing it. There was something fun about the symbols and the algorithm. I would ask for long division problems to do in the car when we were on road trips.
In Middle School I remember feeling unchallenged. I wanted to be accelerated in math but that wasn't something our school did. My 7th grade math teacher would give me Algebra problems to solve when I finished my regular math work too quickly... but that wasn't good enough. I wanted to devour math and was super frustrated that I wasn't given opportunities to do so.
Then in High School this frustration turned in to apathy, boredom, and rebellion. My attendance was never good in school. I didn't like going to school and being bored. I wanted to learn but I consumed the content too quickly. In Algebra 1, I read books in the back of the class, distracted my friends, but also taught them when the teacher couldn't help them fast enough. This became the theme of my high school math experience. I was angry that my teachers wouldn't challenge me and that I had to be the one to "teach" my friends. I rarely had homework and when I did I would complete it as soon as I got home.
In college, because my high school math experience didn't go beyond Math Analysis (Trig) I was placed in Precalculus my first semester and again I was frustrated I couldn't start beyond that. But being 18 and new to college I didn't realize I could challenge the placement. It wasn't until I got to Calculus II that I found my first struggle in math. The concept of Infinite Series was a challenge for me (and was until I started teaching it myself). But because I had never experienced struggle, especially in math, I thought I must have been wrong about my math abilities. I seriously questioned how smart I was and whether or not I was "Math Person." I questioned my abilities to go on from there in my chosen field, Mechanical Engineering, and changed my major to History. Thankfully, I have a mother who pushed back on me and questioned my intentions and future plans. She reassured me that I hadn't been delusional my whole life. I was smart and I was a math person even when I encountered struggle. I retook Calculus II and passed. So I changed my major back and completed my degree in Mechanical Engineering.
Since then I have learned to love the struggle of a really hard math problem and to revel in the success of solving it. I love teaching students math. I love showing them that everyone is capable of doing math even if it takes a little longer. I also love sharing my story of struggle in hope that someone will connect and see themselves in the struggle and the victory.
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